FACT CHECK: Is Borno as big as Britain and Sweden as Osinbajo claims?
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that Borno State is roughly the size of the United Kingdom (UK) plus Sweden combined or Great Britain and Denmark.
Laolu Akande, Osinbajo’s spokesman, disclosed through a statement that the Vice President interacted with a group of Harvard Business School students who visited him at the Presidential Villa on Sunday, August 28.
While interacting with the students who were on an African field trip, Osinbajo said for the international community to better understand the enormity and complexity of Nigeria’s economic and security challenges, it is better to put the size of the country in perspective.
“Firstly, there is a need to appreciate the size of the country, which is crucial to understanding what the problems are.
“For example, Borno is roughly the size of the whole of the UK plus Sweden or Denmark,” the law professor said.
“So when it is reported that there is violence in Nigeria, it is probably an incident in a remote area of the country, and many people in Abuja and Lagos can hear about it on social media, that is how big this country is.
“When they talk about the economy, we are often compared to smaller African countries, but there are 10 states in Nigeria that have a bigger GDP than those countries, it’s a huge target market.”
Is the state of Borno larger in landmass than the whole of Great Britain and Sweden combined or Great Britain and Denmark?
The news report was is published on several news platforms.
Verification
TheCable controlled the size of Borno, the north-eastern state created in February 1976 and further divided in 1991, when Yobe state was carved out of it.
Borno, ironically known as the Home of Peace, to the west is Yobe State. It also shares borders with Republic of Niger in the north, Lake Chad (and the Republic of Chad) in the northeast and Cameroon in the east.
The official website by the Borno State Government revealed that the land mass of the state is 61,435 square kilometers, making it the second largest state in Nigeria after Niger State.
Based on data published in 2020 by National Bureau of Statisticsthe National Population Commission shows that the 2019 population estimate puts Borno’s population of 5.7 million people
The UK comprising the whole island of Great Britain, which contains England, Wales, and Scotland— as well as the northern part of the island Ireland.
World Bank data from 2021 shows that the landmass of UK is 241,930 km².
Britain’s Office of National Statisticsthe largest independent producer of official statistics, puts the country’s population at 67 million people.
Sweden is on Scandinavian Peninsula in northern Europe. Its capital has remained Stockholm since 1523. Sweden occupies most of the Scandinavian peninsula, which it shares with Norway.
Although the country has a 1,000-year continuous history as a sovereign state, its territorial extent changed frequently until 1809. World Bank data from 2021 shows that the current land mass of Sweden is 407,310 km² and has a population of 10.4 million people.
Denmark occupies the peninsula of Jutlandwhich extends northward from the mid-continental west Europe. Jutland makes up more than two-thirds of the country’s total land area.
As of 2021, World Bank data shows that the landmass of Denmark is 40,000 km² and its population is 5.8 million people.
Borno, a vast land area, is indeed larger than Denmark and has about the same population as the Scandinavian country, but it is far in size and population from Sweden and Great Britain.
Checks by TheCable revealed that the land mass and population size of the UK alone is by large margins larger than Borno State, let alone consider adding either Sweden or Denmark.
Borno | UK | Sweden | Denmark | UK + Sweden | Great Britain + Denmark | |
Land mass (km²) | 61,435 | 241,930 | 407,310 | 40,000 | 649,240 | 281,930 |
Population | 5,751,590 | 67,081,000 | 10,415,811 | 5,856,733 | 77,496,811 | 72,937,733 |
Judgment
The claim by Vice President Osinbajo that Borno is roughly the size of the UK and Sweden combined or the UK and Denmark is false and highly exaggerated.
This story is published in partnership with Report for the World, a global service program that supports local public interest journalism.